Now in Acts chapter 12 there's a verse that's sort of a controversial verse with a lot of
people because of the fact that the King James translates this verse differently than all
of the modern versions do.
All of the modern versions say Passover and the King James is the only modern version
that says Easter.
And so a lot of people, they freak out about this.
Look if you would at Acts chapter 12 verse 1, it says, "Now about the time Herod the
king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church, and he killed James the brother
of John with the sword, and because he saw it please the Jews, he proceeded further to
take Peter also.
Then were the days of unleavened bread, and when he had apprehended him, he put him in
prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter
to bring him forth to the people."
So the King James only crowd will normally tell you, "Oh, well this is supposed to be
Easter not Passover because it's this other holiday called Easter, some pagan holiday
called Easter."
That's what the King James crowd will normally tell you.
And then the anti-King James crowd will say, "Hey, the King James is just dead wrong because
it's supposed to say Passover."
Because if you look it up in a Greek New Testament, it's the same word that everywhere else in
the Bible is translated Passover, Passover, Passover, Passover and just this one time
the King James translates it as Easter and they say it's a translation error on the part
of the King James.
So those are the two sides that you hear.
Well here's the deal, both sides are wrong.
Now let me say this, I don't think I'm right about this, I know for a fact that I'm right
about this and I have concrete proof that I'm right about this but the sad thing is
you can show people just concrete proof of something and sometimes they just refuse to
acknowledge it, okay?
Now and I'm not just saying that to be puffed up like I know everything, the point is though
there are certain things that are gray areas, there are certain things that are matters
of opinion, there are certain things where you can kind of see both sides, right?
But then there are other things where it's just black and white, right's right and wrong's
right and this is one of those things where the reason why both sides are wrong on this
is just they have ignorance of the history and of the English language here.
Now, we as King James Bible-believing Christians, we already know the King James is right because
that's already what we believe going in and you say, "Wow, you just start with that?"
Yeah, that's where we start because this is the Bible where we got saved.
This is what we believed in when we called upon Jesus Christ as our Savior.
This is the book that God's been using to turn the world upside down for the last four
hundred years, so we don't join the Bible of the Month club and we are not interested
in what the new versions have.
That viewpoint that this is an error, that's not even an option to us.
But the problem is the King James crowd has got this goofy explanation that they got from
Sam Gip, who's an imbecile, who's like a functioning moron.
And he got everybody on this thing of, "Oh yeah, Easter's this other pagan holiday."
And then the Judaizers come in and start telling you how Easter's pagan and we gotta celebrate
the Passover and all this stuff.
Okay, but look, here's the proof right here.
I've got hard evidence here, and if you'll pay attention carefully and just think for
the next few moments, you'll see that there's really no doubt about this, and you say, "Well,
what is it?
Is it Easter or Passover?"
It's both because Easter means Passover.
It's that simple.
Because the King James crowd says, "Well, the King James is right to say Easter, and
all these other versions are wrong because it's a different holiday.
It's not the Passover."
Here's the problem with that mentality, is that the Greek New Testament, from which the
King James is translated, uses the word for the Passover.
Not only that, every language in the world says Passover in Acts chapter 12 verse 4.
So you're going to tell me that every Bible in every language in the whole world, including
Greek, is all wrong, German's got it wrong, Spanish, every Bible in the whole world's
wrong, it's just this other pagan holiday.
That's a pretty dumb argument.
That's pretty dumb logic.
Okay, but here's the proof.
This right here is William Tyndale's New Testament, the 1534 edition.
So this is a Bible that comes before the King James, right?
Now look, this book is not a perfect book because it was translated by one guy and he
was on the run for his life.
But this was the rough draft for the King James.
William Tyndale was the first guy to translate the New Testament into modern English.
And then over the next 100 years, a little less than 100 years, it was perfected.
Other men came in and worked it over.
And then finally the King James translators, 54 of these brilliant scholars, spent seven
years just going over it with a fine-tooth comb, and they perfected it.
What we know today is the King James Bible.
But this was the rough draft.
But what I want to show you is that the word Easter used to mean Passover, which is why
this book uses the word Easter tons of times, tons of times.
In fact, let me just read this for you.
You flip over, if you would, to First Corinthians chapter five.
First Corinthians chapter five is the famous Passover where it talks about how Christ our
Passover is sacrificed for us.
Let me read for you from the Tyndale New Testament, the rough draft of the King James.
No one would argue with that, okay?
Listen to this.
We're going to go to First Corinthians chapter five, about halfway down the chapter.
Your rejoicing is not good.
You're reading the King James.
Everybody there in your King James Bible?
Okay, I'm going to read for you from William Tyndale's 1534 New Testament.
Your rejoicing is not good.
Know ye not that a little leaven soureth the lump of dough?
Purge therefore the old leaven that ye may be new dough as ye are sweet bread.
For Christ our Easter lamb is offered up for us.
Did you hear that?
Christ our Easter lamb is offered up for us.
So right here where your Bible says Passover, this says Easter lamb.
Now did you know that William Tyndale is the one who invented the word Passover?
There was no word Passover in the English language.
So when William Tyndale came along, the word for Passover in English was Easter.
That was the only word for Passover.
There was no such word as Passover, there was just Easter.
So William Tyndale invented the word Passover and he used it back in Exodus when he was
translating Exodus.
But because most people didn't know that word, most people knew the word Easter, he didn't
want to just fill it with a word that people didn't know.
So in most places he kept the word that people knew, Easter.
That's what they used back in the 1400s, the 1500s.
That was their word for Passover.
But when he came out with his New Testament and he came out with Moses' books, that word
Passover that he invented started to catch on.
And so as you look at the Bibles that came out before the King James, Bibles like the
Matthew Bible, the Great Bible, the Bishop's Bible, they use Easter less and less and they
use Passover more and more as we get closer to the King James.
And the Bible that came right before the King James was called the Bishop's Bible, it uses
the word Easter twice.
So Tyndale used like 22 times and then it keeps getting less and less until the Bishop's
Bible used it twice, the King James Bible only uses it once.
So how can you deny that the word Easter means Passover when in this book it's used like
20 some times as the Passover?
There's concrete evidence right there that that's what that word means, it's pretty clear.
Now when you point this out to people, go back to Acts chapter 12 if you would, when
you point this out to people they'll say to you, "Well no it can't be the Passover."
So what they're saying is Greek New Testament's wrong, every Bible in the whole world and
every other language is all wrong, it's a pagan holiday.
And here's what they say, they claim the days of unleavened bread come after the Passover
so that's why this can't be the Passover, because they claim that there's the Passover,
then there's the feast of unleavened bread, and since Acts 12 takes place during the days
of unleavened bread, the Passover already happened, so the new versions are wrong.
But look if you would at Acts 12.3, it says, "And because he sought to please the Jews,
he proceeded further to take Peter also.
Then were the days of unleavened bread, and when he had apprehended him, he put him in
prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter
to bring him forth to the people."
So they're saying well if Easter comes after unleavened bread, it can't be the Passover.
Wrong.
Because Easter and the days of unleavened bread are the same thing.
Now people who have this mixed up, they'll tell you that the Bible never calls the Passover,
the feast of unleavened bread, or it never calls the feast of unleavened bread the Passover.
It never mixes up those two things.
Okay, well what did we start with in Luke chapter 22 verse 1?
Was the first verse of the chapter says this?
Because you're like, where are you going with this?
Are we in Luke 22?
Look at Luke 22 verse 1.
Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover.
Now the feast of unleavened bread is a seven-day period.
The whole thing's called the Passover because it's a seven-day feast to commemorate the
Lord passing over.
It starts on the 14th, it ends on the 21st, and that feast of unleavened bread is collectively
known as the Passover.
Now that makes Acts 12 make perfect sense because it says that Herod the king killed
James, the brother of John.
And when he did that, he saw that it pleased the Jews.
So he decides, you know what, I want to do something else that pleases the Jews.
I like making Jews happy.
So I'm not just going to kill James, I'm going to kill Peter too.
That's what he's thinking.
Because a lot of people said, "Well, why would Herod celebrate the Passover?
He's a pagan."
No, Herod's trying to please the Jews.
Of course he's going to follow their holiday.
Look what it says.
"Then were the days of unleavened bread, and when he had apprehended him, he put him in
prison and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him, intending after Easter
to bring him forth to the people."
If we let the Bible define itself here, Easter is referring to the days of unleavened bread.
He's saying, "Look, it's the days of unleavened bread, and so after Easter he's going to bring
him forth to the people and kill them."
Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
Pretty easy to understand if we just read it unbiased that Easter and days of unleavened
bread are the same thing.
So that's why you could either call it Passover or Easter because those two words mean the
exact same thing.
One is the old word and one is the new word.
Now why did the King James keep Easter in this one place?
Why didn't they just change it all to Passover?
Who cares?
If they both mean the same thing, they both mean the same thing, number one.
But number two, I think part of the reason is because this verse is clearly referring
to the whole week and so because by saying Passover maybe it would have confused people
like Sam Gipp.
He got confused anyway, but it could have confused them into coming up with, "Well, how could
that be?
If Passover is the 14th and the feast fell on the breast, no, no, it's the whole week."
So I think he's using Easter because we tend to associate the word Easter with the whole
feast, the whole week, the whole thing.
But either way, it's vain jangling is what it is.
The new versions are out to lunch to criticize the King James just for using an older word,
but they do that all the time because they think all the language in the King James is
archaic, right?
And then the King James crowd is out to lunch trying to say it's a pagan holiday.
The Bible's not referencing a pagan holiday, it's referencing the days of unleavened bread
because here's a guy trying to please Jews.
So he doesn't want to kill their enemy during their precious holiday.
So he decides to wait until after their holiday is complete.
I mean, if you have a question about that, come see me after the service, but it's pretty
clear, okay?
And actually don't see me after the service if you have a question about it because this
is probably just over your head and you should just move on and just not let it bother you.
Because if you don't explain, if you don't understand what I just explained, you're probably
not going to understand it after the service either.
So back to Luke chapter 22 verse 1, it says the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh which
is called the Passover.
Now you say that's a rabbit trail you went on.
It kind of comes into play though for understanding this chapter when we understand that the feast
of unleavened bread is not a single day event.
It's a big event that takes a whole week from the 14th to the 21st of the first month.